


The Art of Inheriting Crockery

by gooseberry



Series: Porcelain Figures [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Family Feels, Genderswap, Inheritance, Motherhood, Politics, fem!Bilbo, redwings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 22:48:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseberry/pseuds/gooseberry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>When Thorin lays his head on her belly, his hand curled around her hip, she wonders if he thinks of children, too.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>----</p>
<p>Written for a hobbit kink meme prompt: "Thorin x Bilbo - Distraction (mpreg or fem. Bilbo)</p>
<p>Bilbo does not want kids (at least, that's what he keeps telling hismelf). He's perfectly happy being a bachelor. So why does he find himself kissing Thorin and distracting him with "I want to bear your child."</p>
<p>Thorin/fem!Bilbo, with all these family feels, and thoughts on motherhood, and also a very small bit of redwings porn. Oh, and a relationship that falls apart because of politics and inheritance. It’s like all my favorite things combined! How not surprising.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Art of Inheriting Crockery

It all escalates rather quickly. 

Briony had found the dwarves more off-putting than anything else, from the first ring of her doorbell. The dwarves are loud, riotous, and more than a little noisome. And they are utterly alien to her, from their frankly disturbing amount of facial hair to their much-larger size. For all that Gandalf says that the dwarves are a merry gathering, Briony can only think that the dwarves are barely bridled chaos.

And Thorin--Thorin is worse than the rest. For all that Thorin is neither noisy, nor riotous, and has better hygiene than the rest of the dwarves, Thorin is even more alien to Briony. He rarely speaks to her, he never seems to smile, and he is as good-natured as Lobelia is polite (which is to say, not at all). It’s not that Briony hates Thorin--she’s not sure she can actually hate anyone, even when she tries--but she certainly does not _like_ Thorin. 

The other dwarves have grown on her. Balin is unfailingly polite, Gloin is surprisingly sweet-natured and gentle, and Bofur is good-natured enough to smooth over any wounds left by Thorin’s harshness. The younger dwarves aren’t much different from tweens in the Shire and the older dwarves gossip as much as any hobbit matrons, and somewhere between Bree and Rivendell, Briony realizes that she is really quite fond of her dwarves, for all that they are loud and smelly.

(And she must be fair--the road is a difficult place to keep clean, and she is beginning to smell rather rank herself. She is already shuddering to think of what she will smell like when her blood comes.)

But none of that is the escalation. The escalation begins in the Misty Mountains.

Thorin is utterly unimpressed with Briony. She would hesitate to say that Thorin actively dislikes her, but he certainly doesn’t _like_ her--and the feeling is, for the most part, mutual. Or at least, it is partially mutual. Briony doesn’t like Thorin, but she is very impressed with him. For all of his stubbornness (and he is even more stubborn than Bungo had been, and that is something utterly incredible), Thorin seems to be very--well, majestic, for lack of a better word, and rather heroic. 

If she is entirely honest with herself, Briony will even admit that she is, at least in some small way, falling in love with the romanticism of Thorin and his dwarves. Their quest is like something from a book, and Briony will easily admit that she has always had a penchant for falling in love with heroic characters.

So perhaps that is why it stings so badly, when Thorin looks down at her and says that she has no place amongst them. Briony is a hobbit, and a hobbit she will always be, but she had begun to hope that perhaps she could be of some use. It was a foolish hope--an utterly foolish hope. But as foolish as her hope may be, it leads to a very real hurt, and it feels like her heart is breaking when Thorin says that she is lost, that she is a fool, that she is faithless and no friend of his.

And that is why she defends Thorin: in her father’s old clothes, clutching a dagger the length of her arm. She is in love with Thorin’s tragedy, and in love with the dwarves’ quest; she wants to see the world, and to have an adventure; she wants someone to be impressed with her, because her parents are dead, and there is no one left who will ever say, _Well done, Briony_.

(Because she, for once, wants to be a hero, beautiful and fierce and powerful, like the elvish ladies in Belladonna’s old stories.)

It is horrifying--she has never been so scared before, and her hands are slick with sweat--she is so afraid she will drop her dagger, or that she will faint, or--it is horrible, to feel her dagger meet resistance, then _pop_ through, sinking into the goblin’s stomach like a hot knife sinking into a pat of butter. She can feel herself shaking all over, and her knees feel as though they are all water, and she is afraid that she may piss herself. But for that--for all of that--for everything--she is far more afraid that the story may end, that there will be neither king, nor mountain.

(Perhaps it all fanciful, Tookish nonsense--searching for stories in a ragtag group of dwarves.)

But oh, the fear is worth it, when he embraces her atop the rock--a very lovely surprise, and a very welcome one, too, as she is rather afraid that she’s finally crossed a line, and thinks that he means to throw her from the rock. But he embraces her, and praises her, and tells her, “I was wrong,” and “You were brave,” and “You belong with us.”

And, bless her, he seems honestly impressed with her. His praises give her a heady, giddy feeling that buoys her throughout the day, all the way to Beorn’s hall.

They drink in Beorn’s hall, a thick and potent mead that leaves Briony feeling light-headed and flushed. Everything the dwarves say seems funny, and she tries to hide her giggles into her mug of mead, so that no one will call her out on her drunkenness. It is all for naught--Nori makes an incredibly dirty joke, utterly filthy, and Briony laughs so hard she nearly falls from her stump. She is only saved by Kili, who is sitting next to her, and against whom’s body she falls.

Kili pats at her shoulders and back clumsily, and asks, “Are you alright, Briony? You nearly killed her, Nori--”

Briony rights herself with only a little difficulty, and she musters together all of her dignity to say, as gravely as she can (and it is not very grave indeed, given that she giggles halfway through her words), “I am quite drunk.”

There is a bit of a cheer from the dwarves at her announcement, and given the way Ori is listing dangerously to the one side, and the difficulty Oin is having in refilling his mug, Briony feels sure that the dwarves are also quite drunk. Still, Briony is a hobbit, born and bred, and a hobbit lass at that, so she sets her mug onto the table--carefully, carefully, slowly and with both hands, so she does not drop it or spill it or anything else that rowdy drunken people do--and gathers all that remains of her balance in order to stand.

“I think I will,” she says, and she waves a hand in a bit of a circle, because the words are on the tip of her tongue, but her tongue is feeling rather thick and awkward. “Around the hall.”

“A wise idea,” Gandalf says, “but remain inside the hall.”

“Quite right,” Briony murmurs, and she nods her head, which is--oh, which is a bad idea, because the hall seems to swim around her. She fights the urge to grab onto the closest shoulder--Kili’s again--and says again, “Quite right. Stay inside.”

Then she takes what tattered threads of dignity she has left, and totters away.

The circuits around the hall do nothing as far as sobering her up, but her face begins to feel less flushed. She ends the third circuit on the far side of the hall, where the air is coolest, and the floor beneath her feet is cold. She stays there, first sitting on the floor, then letting herself tip over until she’s sprawled out on her side, her cheek and shoulder and hip all pressed against the cold stone of the floor.

That is where she is when Thorin approaches her. His steps are far more steady than hers had been, and when he speaks, his words are clear and precise.

“You’ve fled the tables,” he says. “Are my dwarves too rowdy for you, Mistress Baggins?”

Briony giggles, feeling a little breathless, then says, “No, not at all. I am very fond of--of rowdiness, now. Not very Baggins-like at all, I’m afraid.” (But perhaps that is a lie--Bungo had always been one of the first to get up and dance at the Old Took’s parties.)

“Yet here you are, at such a distance.” For all his words, though, Thorin is sinking down to sit beside her, and Briony is not so drunk that she doesn’t notice the way he winces and groans.

“Does it hurt?” she asks, because the redness on his face isn’t from flushing, but from his scrapes and bruises. It looks painful--Briony had been in her fair share of tussles as a child, but she’d never been hurt so seriously, had never even had more than scraped knees and one black-eye (and oh, how Bungo had thrown a fit, and Belladonna had been forced to stand in front of the door, to keep Bungo from going out to thrash the hobbit boy who’d given Briony the black-eye).

“It is soreness, nothing more.” 

Briony is not sure what to say to that, and so she holds her tongue. Thorin has been unerringly polite to her today, and she does not want to risk this fragile peace between them. More than anything, she yearns for his good opinion, and she knows how foolish her tongue is when she has drunk too much--and tonight, she has drunk far too much.

Thorin is just as silent, and Briony wonders if he is as unsure about their peace as she is. He sighs, though, and leans back on his hands, and Briony finds herself staring at Thorin’s hand, where it is braced on the floor, very close to her face.

His fingers are broad, his fingertips blunt and square. His knuckles are scraped, just like his face, and she can see where the blood has dried to thin scabs, and where the scabs have been pulled open--probably from making fists, she thinks idly, because Thorin seems to be forever making fists. Then Thorin shifts his hand, perhaps to bear his weight more easily, and Briony’s attention is caught entirely on his thumb. His thumbnail is cut short, and it is cracked along the edge, and she wonders idly what it would feel like, if she pressed her mouth against his nail--or if he flicked his nail against her nipple.

The thought sends a sharp jolt through her body, from her bellybutton down to between her thighs. Her lips suddenly feel dry and she licks at them, a nervous habit of which Belladonna had always been trying to break her.

“I feel,” Thorin says in a low voice, and Briony tries to tear her attention away from Thorin’s hand, “that I must thank you again. You have done me a great service.”

“Oh,” Briony replies. She reaches out, just enough to touch the tip of Thorin’s thumb. “I am--I’m glad. That I could help.”

When she looks upward, Thorin is looking down at her, and his face looks smoother than she has ever seen it before; perhaps he is smiling--she wants to sit up so that she might see if he is. She wriggles, then pushes herself up, blinks as the blood rushes from her head.

“Steady--” Thorin presses a hand to her shoulder, and the feel of it is hot through Briony’s blouse and waistcoat, Thorin’s palm wide and firm and so very warm.

“Thank you,” Briony says, and then abruptly, her tongue made loose and brave and far too careless, “I am glad. That we are--well, friends, maybe. If you want. I would--I would want.” She catches his hand, holding it against her shoulder when he tries to draw away. His skin is dry and warm, and she can feel the scrapes and scabs spread over his knuckles. 

“An honor,” he says after a long silence. His palm is still pressed against Briony’s shoulder, held motionless under her hand, and she grips at it.

And this--this is the moment of escalation, when she feels something rise in her blood, when she scrambles up onto her knees.

“I think I would like to kiss you,” she blurts out, and before he can pull away and before she can feel any fear, she leans forward and kisses his cheek and then, when he turns his head just enough, she kisses his lips, gently and close-mouthed.

He turns his head more, enough that he is facing her full on, and his eyes--they are blue, a pale, washed-out blue, and Briony wonders if this is what people feel, in the stories and in the songs--like there is nothing quite so beautiful as another person’s eyes, when you are kissing that person, and they are kissing you back. And he is kissing her back, quick pecks to her closed mouth.

She is not sure who deepens the kiss--it might be her, but she hopes it is him: she hopes that Thorin wants her as much as she wants him, that he is half so impressed with her as she is with him. No matter who deepens the kiss, Briony kisses Thorin fiercely, fisting her hands in Thorin’s hair and nipping at Thorin’s lower lip.

“You bite,” Thorin says into their kiss, his eyes still open. His lip, when Briony draws far enough away to look at it, is already red and swollen.

“I--If you would rather,” Briony stutters, but Thorin is touching her now, lying his hand against her side. His hand is large, and it feels like it is spanning the length of Briony’s ribs, his little finger pressing against the side of her stomach, his thumb curving with Briony’s breast. She can feel the heat of his palm through her clothes, and she wants him to touch her skin, to cup her breasts and to drag his fingertips down the line of her sternum.

“It wasn’t a complaint,” Thorin says, and he is pressing close enough to Briony that she can feel the rumble of his chest as he speaks. She licks her lips then, before she can think better of anything, she says,

“Good,” and grabs his hand, pulling it up so that it is resting on her breast.

He is gentle with her--far more gentle than she had expected. He is so very large, and he makes her feel so very small, but he is gentle, more careful than she is. When he pushes her down onto the floor, he does so slowly, and when she grabs at him, trying to pull him down to her, he catches himself on his elbow, holding himself above her.

“No--” She moans her complaint, trying to tug him to lie between her legs, to pull his weight onto her body. He doesn’t move at all, holding himself above her, and when she tugs all the harder, he frowns at her.

“You’re so small,” he says, and it sounds so much like when he had told Gandalf, _She is too much a gentle lass_. She scowls up at him and pinches the inside of his arm.

“You’re not so heavy,” she tells him, and when he still hesitates, she arches her back, thrusting her belly and her hips up against his body. It must be the coin that tips the scale, because he groans, then settles between her legs, the breadth of his body resting in the curve of her hips. He pushes her ruined waistcoat open, then begins fumbling with the buttons of her blouse. She tries to help, but her fingers feel numb from alcohol and arousal--she gives up on the buttons, and instead begins to pull at the laces of her trousers, loosening them enough that she can slip a hand down her trousers.

She is unsure of what she should call it, or if she should call it anything at all; fucking seems too crude, and it certainly is not making love. Perhaps it is teasing--only teasing, the way he fits his mouth against her collarbone, his breath hot and wet. His fingers feel even broader than they had looked, and when he thrusts his fingers into her, she has to swallow down her gasps. 

“Please,” she begs him, and she grabs at his wrist and hand, trying to pull him closer. She feels empty still, like there is a spot deep inside her that can’t be reached. “Another one, _please_ \--”

That is how she comes, her body writhing up against Thorin’s and her trousers pulled only halfway down her thighs. Thorin’s fingers stay in her, broad and blunt and hot, and she rides out her shudders against his wrist, clutching to him.

When she can be bothered to open her eyes, Thorin is bent over her. His fingers are still inside her, moving in slow, tiny jerks, and she tries to squirm away until she notices that his other hand is shoved down his own trousers. 

“Can I?” she asks, and Thorin ducks his head against her shoulder, his fingers in her cunt _curling_ as he gasps. Briony’s whole body shudders, still too sensitive, and she clenches her hands around the fabric of his shirt. She can feel the heat of his face pressed against her skin, and when he groans, she can feel the tenseness of his body.

Her body cools quickly, the sweat on her skin turning cold where her naked skin is touching the stone floor. When Thorin disentangles himself from her, she can’t help but shiver, feeling goose pimples spread on her arms. When he looks down at her, she stretches and sighs and says, “The floor is cold.”

It’s not too hard to put her clothes to rights: she tugs her shirt closed, doing up the buttons with slow fingers, while Thorin pulls her trousers back up. Her waistcoat is still a lost cause, but she smooths it over her blouse regardless, patting down her pockets to make sure she hasn’t lost that strange, magical ring. 

“You should move closer to the fire,” Thorin says, when Briony has been put back together. Briony hums her agreement, then grabs Thorin’s hand, bringing it to her face. She kisses his palm, and the base of his fingers; last, she kisses the pulse in his wrist, then she stands up.

“Sleep well, Master Dwarf,” she says, and she is certain that she sees him smile before she heads across the hall, back to the the fire and Gandalf and all the rest of the company.

x

Her bleeding begins the third day after they reach Laketown, which is a minor miracle in and of itself. Perhaps Briony shouldn’t be surprised that her body is running its courses--she is a hobbit, after all, and a sturdy one at that. Still, she is more than a little shocked that after months of traveling and fighting and very nearly starving (and not to mention the mental strain and the untold stresses of trying to keep her silly dwarves alive and uneaten), her bleeding comes only a few days late. 

Rags are brought in for her, and tea to ease her cramps, and it’s no great struggle to stay in bed, curled around hot bricks, since she is already laid up with her cold. By the time her sniffles are gone, her cramping is much diminished, though she is still bleeding. And that--well, she was a young lass once, and she snuck off into the fields with a lad or two, and so she gets an idea--a wonderful, marvelous idea, if Thorin is willing.

She leaves her room in time to eat dinner with the dwarves, and they are flatteringly happy to see her up and about. She sits between Balin and Gloin, a position that grants her safety from any overly exuberant youngsters, and also gives her a rather lovely view of Thorin. 

Thorin nods at her complimentarily, says, “It is good to see our burglar is still with us.”

“Well,” she says, feeling herself blush, “there was no other place to go--nor any other place I would want to go.”

Thorin looks at her thoughtfully and Balin pats her arm with a smile, and the other dwarves laugh and cheer and jostle each other. They pass her platters of meats and baskets of breads, and the younger dwarves make a game of tossing foods onto Briony’s plate. She is feeling ravenous after her cold and the first few days of her blood, and so she eats nearly everything that is given her. 

There is smoking after dinner, and stories. Briony compares smoke rings with Oin and Nori, and drinks tea as she listens to the dwarves’ stories. All the stories seem to be war stories--full of blood and death, and it is all foreign to her, for all that she’s seen blood and death. Still, she puts in the right responses, gasping when everyone else nods gravely, and groaning when everyone else laughs. 

“Still a gentle lass,” Dwalin says when Briony blanches at a particularly gruesome description of a beheading. 

“Gentle,” she agrees, feeling a little breathless and ill, “but not helpless.”

“No, lass,” Dwalin agrees, and he grins at her broadly as he pushes the teapot closer to her, “never helpless.”

But there is helplessness in her--a helpless affection that is gnawing its way beneath her ribs. She smiles back at Dwalin, and when Nori tries to elbow her in her side, she pinches him and says, “Right, then--if it’s all to be fighting now, I’m off for bed.”

She makes her escape, and takes herself back to her room, where she sits on her bed and waits. When the house has gone quiet, Briony grabs the armful of towels she had found, and takes herself upstairs to knock at the door that Fili had pointed out to her just after dinner. 

“Briony,” Thorin says when he opens the door for her. Briony shifts on her feet, then says, before she can lose her courage or think better of this,

“May I come in? Only, I’d rather not stand in the hallway, and--”

When he takes a step back, opening the door a little wider, she slips in past him. There’s not quite enough room, and when her arm brushes against his chest, she clutches her towels a little more tightly and wishes she didn’t blush as easily as she does.

“What might I do for you?” Thorin asks, shutting the door with a click, and Briony looks at the bed in the room--a bed for Men, it is enormous, big enough for an entire hobbit family--then back at Thorin. He is looking at her curiously, his head tilted just the littlest bit, and Briony feels her heart thump.

“That is--well, I had thought. You had kissed me again, in the, uh, the dungeons, and I just.” And oh, she is stumbling on her words so badly, but Thorin is looking at her curiously, and she thinks that his eyes are very pretty indeed. “It is only,” she says in a rush, “that hobbits--well, we don’t have a problem with it, it isn’t very dirty--or it is, only things can be washed, and it is better to wash a few things than to have to raise a child, but dwarves may be different.”

And then she waits for Thorin’s answer. She does not have to wait long--Thorin is taking a step back and is saying, “I am not sure of what you are trying to say.”

“I’m bleeding.” And oh, that is short and frank, and Bungo would be rolling in his grave, if he knew what his daughter is saying. “We wouldn’t have to worry about a child--but if dwarves find it distasteful, then we wouldn’t--”

“No,” Thorin interrupts, and now he is looking down at Briony’s body in a way that makes Briony feel an even hotter blush on her cheeks. “Dwarves would not find it distasteful.”

“Oh,” Briony says, and she smiles at him, feeling relieved and nervous all at once. “I’m glad I haven’t frightened you away.”

And Thorin says, in that sly tone that Briony is just now beginning to recognize, “I don’t believe there is anything about hobbits that would frighten me.”

Briony begins to retort, but Thorin leans in to kiss her, and then they are stumbling back towards the bed, Briony’s arms still full of towels and Thorin’s hands on Briony’s waist. When they reach the bed, they have to stop kissing long enough for them both to climb onto the bed, and then Briony is shoving the towels further up the bed so her hands are free. She throws a leg over Thorin’s waist and then, straddling him, rocks up to kiss him again.

It is lovely, far better than kissing through the bars of a dungeon cell, and much better than drunken fumbling. Thorin’s hands are firm and steady on Briony’s body, and Briony feels bold enough to loosen the ties of Thorin’s shirt and to tug at it as she leans back.

“Off, off,” she tells him, in as imperious a tone as she can manage, and Thorin does so, dragging his shirt off. His chest is broad and covered in hair--entirely too much hair, as far as Briony is concerned, but all people have their faults, and everyone has their burdens, and if Briony’s burden is to bed a dwarf with a little too much hair--well, it is a burden she will gladly bear.

Thorin turns his attention to her borrowed dress, something that a human girl must have once worn. The dress is held closed with beautiful ribbons, and Thorin tugs at the ribbons, pulling the dress loose enough that it slips off her shoulders and arms, pooling around her waist. Her shift is thin, as delicate as gossamer, and when Thorin runs his thumbs across the collar of her shift, Briony feels her nipples tighten. When Thorin tugs at the laces of the shift, the shift loosens, and falls the same way as the dress.

“Still soft,” Thorin says as he runs his hands down her body, along the weight of Briony’s breasts and the softness of her belly. It startles a laugh out of Briony, and she thinks that her laugh sounds too close to a sob--she feels too close to sobbing, and it is perhaps exhaustion from their journey, or perhaps the tears she always seems to cry when she is bleeding. Either way, Thorin buries his face against the softness of Briony’s belly, and she pets her fingers through his hair gently, taking in deep breaths to hold the tears at bay.

“Still soft,” she says when she is sure she won’t cry. “I’m a hobbit, after all--we are all soft, and always will be.”

Thorin turns his face against her belly, his beard sharp and prickly against her skin, and he says, “I’m glad for it.”

“Silly dwarf,” she murmurs, and he must hear the fondness in her voice, because he kisses her belly, just to the side of her bellybutton. “Silly dwarf,” she says again, and she tugs at his hair, pulling him away from her belly.

Briony lays out the towels while Thorin kicks off his trousers, and then they try to find how they fit together: his hands _here_ , and her knees _there_ ; an elbow, and a foot, and the heat of his breath against the tingling of her mouth. When Thorin stretches, then reaches down between her legs, his fingers brushing the hair of Briony’s groin, Briony groans, then says, “Stop--stop, you’ll get your hand all bloody.”

Thorin looks puzzled, and he says, “I expect I’ll be getting bloody regardless.”

“No reason to make it messier than it needs be,” Briony says with a huff, then, when Thorin slips a finger inside her regardless, she hisses and squirms and says, “Oh, well, if you insist--”

Thorin sets to it then, thrusting his finger in her cunt with all the single-minded intensity he seems to have for every task. Briony feels her toes curl, and her fingers to match, and she says, “Only slower--slower, Thorin, I’m a bit sensitive--”

When he crooks his finger, her breath breaks, and when he adds a second finger, Briony lifts her hips, trying to thrust herself back onto Thorin’s hand. His fingers are as wide and as blunt as she remembered, and she feels more than a hint of trepidation when she thinks of what it will feel like when he fucks into her with his cock.

When he does, it _aches_ , pain and pleasure twisting in her belly and her hips. Her hips shift against her will as she tries to ease the pressure, and she reaches for her own breasts, dragging her fingernails over her nipples in an effort to distract herself. It doesn’t help, not at first--not even when Thorin is holding still, propped up on his arms, his body nearly quivering over hers. 

“It’s fine,” Briony pants, and she’s not sure if she’s lying to them both. She pinches her nipples again, then reaches out, digging her hands into Thorin’s hair. “It’s fine,” she says again, and she grips Thorin’s scalp, turning his head so that she can kiss his mouth.

When he begins to thrust, she bites at his lips, muffling her groans in his flesh. It’s not that it feels right--but it feels good, all pressure aside. It feels good, to wrap her legs around his, to skim her hands down his back. She clutches at him and pulls at him, bites him and kisses him and just presses her mouth against the muscles of his chest. He is beautiful, she thinks--beautiful when he’s naked and tired and covered in sweat.

When he comes, his face is something to see, his brow dark and furrowed, his mouth stretched into a grimace. He looks angry, which means he looks utterly _Thorin_ , and she pets at his hands with tingling fingers, feeling an aching sense of love for him. He groans, low enough that she feels it rather than hears it, a quaking that rattles her very ribcage.

x

It is something she begins to think of the next day. She is lying in her bed downstairs, feeling quite lazy in the early morning, and she begins to wonder what it would be like to have a child.

She is already fifty, and while there are many hobbit women who have children through their sixties, it’s quite late to have a first child at fifty. All of Briony’s playmates and cousins have handfuls of children already, and she has always thought herself quite happy to not be counted amongst them. She values her independence, and she’s rather sure she doesn’t have the patience necessary to raise a child. She likes to rise late in the mornings, and to read late into the night--she likes to pamper herself, to spend hours reading her books and looking at her maps and poking through her garden. She likes being able to keep knickknacks scattered around her house, without worrying about little hands breaking anything and everything.

But it is nice, too, to sometimes think about children. She has a glory box filled with baby clothes, dozens of white dresses and blankets, embroidered with yellow and green flowers. There are little socks and even littler mitts, delicate things that she had knitted with her mother when she had been a tween, when she had still thought she would get married and have children. And it is a nice thought--to think of having a baby that she could dress in those pretty little dresses. And perhaps--perhaps, nicest of all, is the thought of a child that is Thorin’s, too.

She rolls onto her side, stretching until her feet find a spot where the sheets are still cool. She wonders what it would feel like, to carry a child. She thinks of how Thorin had kissed her belly last night, and she wonders if he’d kiss it more, if she was pregnant--if she would be able to hold his hand to her belly, so he could feel a baby kick.

She spends hours daydreaming about it, about how her breasts would grow heavy and how her hips would become the center of her body; she dreams about how she would kiss a baby’s feet, how she would kiss the fat folds of a baby’s neck. She pulls the blankets over her head, hiding from the world, and she dreams about how Thorin would carry a baby: carelessly, perhaps--Thorin’s hands are so big, and a baby is so small, and he would be able to carry one so easily. He would tuck the baby into his elbow, and her heart would be in her throat--but he’d never drop it. That would be Briony. She would probably drop a baby a dozen times, and probably lose it a dozen times more. 

Briony ducks her head against the pillow to muffle her giggles, and to muffle her longing, too. She’s too old to begin a new life, and too settled in her ways to seriously consider a child. Still, it is a nice thought--a pleasant enough daydream, a little bit romantic and a little bit careless, like all things Took. She lies in her bed for a while longer, thinking of other things--food, and clothes, and her garden. Then she drags herself out of the warm sheets, pulling on a dress and brushing her hair before going in search of food.

The weeks pass in a haze, and Briony spends more time than she should, lying in Thorin’s bed. They explore each other, with hands and mouths and most of all words. Thorin pushes up her shift to just beneath her breasts, and he presses his mouth against the inside of her thigh, where his beard leaves her skin red and sore.

“When you come,” Briony asks, propping herself up on her elbows so she can see him.

“Orgasm,” Thorin corrects in a voice that Briony wouldn’t call _prissy_ , exactly, but certainly _particular_. Briony rolls her eyes and goes on.

“When you _orgasm_ , do dwarves call it a little death?”

Thorin lifts his head enough to look at her, and when Briony catches sight of his eyes, she feels a flutter in her stomach. Thorin’s eyes look serious, his eyebrows knotting as he frowns and says, “We do.”

“There,” Briony says. “Hobbits do, too, so we’ve got another thing in common.”

Thorin’s sigh almost sounds like a laugh, and Briony takes it as one when Thorin lies his head on her thigh so he can see her better. Briony can feel his fingers dragging up along her thigh, and she takes in a shaky breath, then lets it out when he turns his face just enough to kiss her inner thigh again.

“Dwarves call it a quim,” he murmurs, and he’s teasing her, his fingers petting into the crease between her thigh and her groin.

“Hobbits call it a quaint,” she replies, squirming. “Or a cunt--and I think you should touch it now, that’d be best.”

Thorin’s laugh is longer this time, and muffled against her skin. His fingers slide back down her leg, _away_ from her cunt, and she doesn’t bother trying to muffle her sound of disappointment. She lets her weight fall back onto the pillows again, and moves her foot enough that she can kick at Thorin’s knee.

“What else, then?” she asks. “What do dwarves call cock and balls?”

“Cock and balls,” Thorin’s voice says, and Briony smiles at the ceiling before she props herself up again, so she can see Thorin’s face.

“Really?” she asks. “I thought you would’ve called your balls something like gems, being a dwarf--”

She is utterly delighted when he rolls his eyes at her, and even more delighted when he puts his mouth to good use, pressing his tongue against the heat of her cunt.

Some nights, they spend hours wrapped around each other, their legs tucked in close. They kiss slowly, sleepily, and it has been years since Briony’s kissed someone like this. Sometimes she will pull off Thorin’s shirt, and other times he’ll push her shift from her shoulders. He kisses the freckles on her arm and the little scar on her hip, and she explores the dips of his collarbone and the feel of his beard on her breasts. They talk of a great deal of nothing: Thorin describes Erebor, the halls and the rooms, the heights and the depths of the mountain. Briony talks about the Shire, about her garden and her cousins, the markets and the festival days. She falls asleep sometimes, under the warm weight of Thorin’s body, and when she wakes up, she kisses him gently on the mouth before she leaves for her own bed.

Other nights, she pins him to the bed and kisses him until her mouth feels raw, strips him of his trousers and slides down the bed to suck his cock. He digs bruises into her waist, throws her onto the bed and throws himself on top of her; presses his hand against her lower belly and tongues at the knot of her clit until she is bucking her hips upwards. They fuck each other--and this is fucking, the way he holds her legs spread, the way she digs her fingernails into his shoulders. This is fucking, but there’s something tender in it, too, somewhere deep inside the warmth of her belly; something tender in the way she can’t look away from the crease between Thorin’s eyebrows, the way she has to touch his lips--the way he looks so utterly wrecked.

“Careful,” she gasps, her shoulders pressed back against the bed, her back arching away from the bed. “Thorin--”

He pulls out of her, and he has barely made a fist around his cock before he’s coming with a grunt. His seed splatters on her belly, in the hair of her groin, and she watches his body, the way he trembles from shoulders to waist.

It was close--but she wonders what would have happened, if she hadn’t warned him; if she’d wrapped her legs around him, and held him in her as he came. She wonders what will happen, if she drags her fingers through his seed, then pushes it into her cunt. When Thorin lays his head on her belly, his hand curled around her hip, she wonders if he thinks of children, too.

x

Erebor is more glorious than anything she has ever imagined. The sheer size of the treasure room takes her breath away, and once the dragon is gone, she’s as eager to explore Erebor as the dwarves. The kingdom is all jutting arches and untold depths, staircases that rise out of sight and bridges that span dark chasms. The only light comes from their torches, and the torchlight catches on the veins of gold in the walls, and pours away into shadows. Everywhere Briony looks, there is more gold, more arches, more staircases and bridges and dark looming things, things that promise to be more beautiful than anything she has ever seen, once the kingdom is lit again.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispers. It feels like her breath has been stolen away from her, and when she looks at her dwarves--her silly, rowdy, wonderful dwarves--she wants to weep, because she cannot imagine losing a place like this. 

“Aye,” Balin says, “she is beautiful,” and Briony grasps at Kili’s hand and chokes on her giggle when Kili grins at her and swings their hands.

They move their way through Erebor, and Briony gasps at everything she sees. She squeezes Kili’s hand, and says, “Kili, look--”

“I’m looking,” Kili laughs, and Briony can’t help but squeeze his hand all the tighter, and say,

“I never imagined--”

She never imagined; for all of her dreams, and for all her romanticism, she had never imagined anything like this. 

They set up a camp further up in the mountain, near the front gate. They are all split into shifts--a shift spent watching the camp, and another shift spent exploring the treasure room, with a third shift to sleep. Briony finds herself shuffled in with Fili and Kili and Thorin, and before she knows it, she is being herded back down to the treasure room.

“Look,” they all seem to say at once, “Briony, look at this--”

She feels like she is in the middle of a country dance, spinning madcap. There is gold everywhere, piled higher than she can see, and the glimmers at the edge of her sight makes her feel dizzy. She spins, and gasps, and laughs as loud as the rest of them.

“It’s beautiful,” she says, “all of it,” and they laugh at her, and pull her further into the treasure room.

It’s Fili who give her the first piece. It’s a hair comb, unlike anything Briony has ever seen before. It is gold, and there are dozens of emeralds dangling from it, bracketed in delicate golden chains. Fili calls Briony over, then tucks it into her hair, saying, “I think you’re the only one who’ll care to wear it.”

“And what of Gloin’s wife,” Briony argues half-heartedly, “or Bombur’s?” She tilts her head, though, and listens to the chains ring against each other, like the littlest bells. The comb is heavier than she expected, but it was cunningly made, and no matter how she shakes her head, it stays fast. 

She is touching the comb again, feeling the cool weight of the emeralds, when Thorin calls her over. He is holding something that looks like liquid silver, and when she comes close, he shakes it out.

“A mithril shirt,” he says before she can ask what it is. “Strong enough to turn back any blade, but light enough even for a hobbit to wear.”

She scowls at him, but when he lifts his eyebrows, she holds up her arms. The mithril shirt slides easily over her head, as smooth as slipping on a silken shirt, and it is nearly as light as Thorin promised. She is adjusting the shirt, fixing the way it is lying on her shoulders, when Thorin wraps a belt around her waist, a much heavier thing that seems to be all gold and diamonds.

“No,” she says, “that is much too ugly--perhaps something blue, or green, to match my comb?”

This time it is Thorin who scowls at her, but he takes back the belt, and begins to dig through the closest treasure pile. It seems to be only moments before he’s turning back, holding a much daintier belt that is silver and rose-gold and pretty little sapphires.

“How mad,” Briony says, feeling a little dazed. “You ask for something, and it just appears--you dwarves _are_ something else, that is certain.” She holds still, though, letting him wrap the belt around her waist, and cinch it loosely.

“Your nephew,” Briony says as Thorin is eyeing her speculatively--probably trying to decide if he should fetch her a helm, too-- “gave me a comb, but you seem more intent on arming me for war.”

Thorin scoffs loudly, then says, “As our burglar seems to always find trouble--” (and he ignores her when she squawks, “Trouble finds _me_ ”) “--I thought it best to take what precautions I can, in keeping her with us a while longer.”

It’s said in jest, she’s certain, but when he runs a hand over her shoulder, down the fall of mithril, she wonders how much truth there is in his jest. She swallows hard, but Kili is calling for Thorin’s attention before she can think of anything to say. She watches him go, then turns herself, returning to help Fili decide on which necklaces his mother would like best.

x

Briony tires of the treasure quickly, but by the fourth day, the dwarves are still as interested in the treasure room as they were on the first. When Fili and Kili head down the treasure room, Briony waves them off, saying that she’d much prefer a nap to cavorting amongst gold and diamonds and whatever other things might gleam in the torchlight. She is about to retire to her bedroll, and a lazy nap, when she notices that Thorin is not heading down with his nephews, but down a side hallway instead.

His back is broad--it always seems broader, each time she sees it, and for how broad it is, she thinks that it shouldn’t make her feel so sad. Still, watching him walk down a dark hallway, with only a lamp--it makes something ache in her, and before she’s quite aware of what she’s doing, she’s trotting down the hallway after him. It is curiosity, most like--the same, Tookish curiosity that led her mother on wild adventures, and the same, Baggins-like longing that always sent her father after her.

“Where are you going?” she asks, when she is within a few paces of him.

Thorin seems to startle, taking a quick sidestep, but then he huffs and says, “You’re quiet, little burglar.”

Briony takes a few steps closer, and when he looks down the hallway, in the direction he had been heading, she prompts, “Thorin?”

“I was going to see what could be salvaged from the upper halls,” Thorin murmurs, and his voice sounds distracted. “Blankets, clothes--some things should have survived, if with all the years.” 

When he begins to walk down the hallway again, Briony follows after him, asking, “May I come with you?”

He doesn’t look back at her, but he does shorten his stride. “If you choose,” he says, and she follows him into the dark of the mountain.

They have only one lamp, a small thing of twisted gold that must have come from the treasure room. It is a cleverly made lamp, with mirrors set into its walls. The lamplight is reflected and reflected again, until it is dazzling to the eye, and the lamp’s twisted bars of gold cast up strange shadows on the wall. Briony finds her attention being dragged to the lamp as much as to the city they are passing through, and when she trips for the third time, distracted by one of the lamp’s strange shadows, Thorin says, “It is not a very practical lamp.”

“No,” Briony says slowly, “though it is very pretty,” and her hesitant response is rewarded with faint smile from Thorin.

“We were rich,” he says. “Our kingdom was prosperous and powerful, and we made many beautiful things. Things that were not necessarily practical, but were certainly beautiful.”

“I have baubles,” she offers, watching the floor in front of her feet now. “Nothing grand like here--only little things, porcelain figures and teacups. They’re not practical, but they are pretty.” She laughs then, mostly at herself, at the thought of her describing pretty things to a dwarf. “I like pretty things,” she says, “though nothing I have in the Shire is half so beautiful as the things I’ve seen here.”

She catches Thorin looking at her, and what looks like a smile on Thorin’s face. “Come, Mistress Baggins. I will show you Erebor.”

He takes her up staircase after staircase, and down long halls. He shows her the places he remembers, telling her, _these were my mother’s rooms,_ and _this is where my brother burnt a tapestry,_ and _here is where my sister learned to walk._ His memories are short things, and Briony wonders if it is because his memories are nearly two centuries gone, or because his memories are still too near and painful. If Thorin was a hobbit, she would pull him close to kiss him; if he was another dwarf, she would hold his hand, and perhaps kiss his wrist. He is Thorin, though, and so she stands back, and watches quietly as he wanders through the rooms of his past.

When he covers his face with his hands, she says nothing, and when he says, “Come, there’s more to see,” she follows him.

They walk deeper and deeper into the mountain. The kingdom seems endless, and for as wide as the world has become to her, Erebor seems wider still. Every time she turns, she catches sight of another dozen staircases, leading to another dozen hallways. 

“How many,” she asks, “died?”

And Thorin says, “A number too high to count.”

He takes her hand for a while--just a short while, while they clamber over a ruined staircase. The rubble slides beneath their feet, and Thorin wraps his hand around her wrist, pulling her up behind him. When they’ve reached solid footing, Thorin squeezes her wrist, then lets go, pulling away again, and Briony begins to follow him once more.

There is more than can be seen, even if the lights of Erebor were lit. Thorin says as much, tells her about all that he has never seen: districts of homes, mine shafts that delved into the earth, staircases that wound up to the summit of the mountain.

“It would take a lifetime to see it all,” Briony pants, out of breath and clutching desperately to a handrail. 

“It will,” Thorin says in a light voice, and he smiles at her as he says, “We’ve a ways to go yet, Mistress Baggins.”

At the top of the next stair, however, Briony puts her foot down--and her arse, too. She sits down in the middle of a narrow hallway, and when Thorin tries to prod her onwards, she says, feeling rather testy, “I am a hobbit, Master Dwarf, and we hobbits do not find much pleasure in climbing stairs--nor, indeed, to climb anything at all. Since I have left the Shire, I have climbed mountains and trees and now an endless number of stairs, and I am quite finished.”

“Indeed,” Thorin says in a voice that certainly means that he’s laughing at her. She pays it no mind, and instead pats the floor beside her, and says, 

“Sit down. I’m tired just looking at you.”

And he sits--he sits beside her, a king sitting on a dusty floor. They sit together in silence, and Briony wonders what Thorin is thinking of--if he’s still remembering what his mountain used to be like, or if he is imagining what his mountain will become. She wonders herself: imagines how the lights will glint off the walls, how the floors will gleam; how busy the halls will become, with dwarves hurrying here and there, and children playing on the stairs. She imagines what it would be like, if she stayed here, in Thorin’s mountain. Then she thinks of her little hobbit hole, with its round windows and its bright wooden floor and the smell of grass, and she realizes--she realizes, she has not smelled the scent of grass, or summer wheat, or apple blossoms, in a very long time.

“Everything I have is in my hole,” she says, because this is Thorin’s mountain, and far in the west, Briony has a hill--a little thing, but something as dear to her as Thorin’s mountain is to him. She licks her lips, and dares to look as far over as Thorin’s knee. His hand is resting on his knee, loose and motionless, and she looks back at her own lap before she goes on: “It’s not much, but it’s all I have of my parents. I know--Gandalf scolded me, you know. He asked me why my mother’s dishes were so important, and perhaps they shouldn’t be, but they’re all I have of her, and my father. I have--I have a lovely little home, and my mother’s dishes, and my father’s writing desk, and books and clothes and our glory boxes and those _silly porcelain figures_ \--”

Her voice is growing hysterical, she can feel it all the way from the bottom of her belly, the way she feels like she’ll be sick. Thorin is moving beside her, shifting like he means to touch her, and Briony holds up a hand, like she would be able to hold him off--like she, a hobbit lass from the Shire, would be able to hold back a dwarvish king.

“Briony,” Thorin says, and she can hear worry in his voice, the same worry she hears when he talks to his nephews and his cousins and all the other dwarves. Briony swallows, then says, in a voice that sounds far shakier than she wants to admit, 

“I want a child.” She takes a breath and holds it; when Thorin says nothing, she says, “I want to go home--I need to go home. I can’t live in a mountain, I’m not a dwarf. I’m only a hobbit, and I need my hills, and my fields, and my garden.”

“But you want,” Thorin says, like he’s prompting her, or maybe like he’s unsure of what she’s asking. 

“A child,” Briony says. She licks her lips again and says, “Yours. Your child.”

Thorin’s breath is loud enough, and sudden enough, that Briony is startled into looking at him. His hands are cupping his mouth, and he is staring straight ahead of him, at something only he can see; maybe there really is something there, hidden in darkness to dark for hobbit eyes to see, but Briony thinks that it is far more likely he is looking at nothing.

“You’re not,” he says after a few moments, and his voice sounds horribly strained. Briony’s no fool--she knows why he sounds so wretched.

“No,” she answers, “not that I know--but I wish I was.” And that is the greatest confession. She feels utterly sick, all twisted up with fear and despair and a nervousness that is more Baggins than Took.

“I can’t, Briony,” Thorin says, in that same horrible voice, but softly, gently. It’s the softness that makes Briony hide her face in her hands, because she won’t let him see her cry.

“Briony,” Thorin says, and he doesn’t touch her--she’s grateful for that. “I can’t give you a child. Fili and Kili are my heirs, and I won’t let anyone steal their inheritance, not even my burglar.”

It’s a terrible joke, and Briony hates him for it. “I have none,” she mumbles into the hollow of her hands. She is not sure what she’s saying. “My parents are dead and I don’t have brothers or sisters. I don’t have any nieces or nephews, only cousins, and they all live far away. I don’t have heirs, or--or any family.”

“I can’t,” Thorin says again, and Briony says,

“I would never ask anything else. Not--not your gold, or your kingdom. I don’t even want my share of the treasure, just--”

Thorin’s kindness leaves as quickly as it had come. He grasps her hand, tearing it away from her face, and Briony can’t help but try to pull away.

“I won’t sell my blood or my seed,” Thorin snaps, leaning into her face. He looks livid, angrier than she has seen him in weeks. “You’re my burglar and nothing else. I won’t--” He grits his teeth, loud and fierce enough that she can hear the grind, and then he drops her hand. It’s good he did, because now she’s feeling livid, too.

“Don’t be a fool,” she says sharply, and she turns all the way to face him. “That’s not what I mean, Thorin, and you know it. I’ll never have you--I know that, and I’ve made my peace with it--but I want--I want a family. I want a child.” He doesn’t look mollified, but he looks less angry, and Briony tries to gentle her voice, and to plead, “No one will ever know.”

But Thorin’s face looks dark, and his lips thin, and he says, “You will.”

“Yes,” Briony says, and Thorin says,

“And I will,” and Briony says again,

“Yes,” and Thorin says,

“And that is two too many. You’ve asked too much, burglar.”

He says nothing when she tucks her head in against her knees and weeps. He touches her, laying a cold hand against the bare nape of her neck, and when he pets his thumb against the dip behind her ear, she wonders if he hurts as much as she does.

When they head back to the camp, they do so slowly. Briony carries the lamp, and Thorin matches his stride to her weary one, and now and again Thorin will tell her to wait. She does so, standing in the center of hallways, great and small, and she watches the strange shadows cast by the pretty little lamp. Thorin ducks into rooms, and when he comes back, dusty and smelling of mold and decay, he is always carrying some new thing--blankets, or clothes; a short cloak, once, which he throws over Briony’s shoulders. By the time they reach the camp, Briony’s face feels cool and dry, and she is able to smile at Ori and Oin when they catch sight of her.

The next night, Thorin brings her ropes of pearls. The pearls are all sizes, from the nail of her pinky to the size of her thumb, and they seem to glow in the lamplight. Thorin pours the ropes into her lap, and he says, “Dwarves seldom go to sea. Pearls are rare to us, and more precious than anything that can be hewn from rock.”

“They’re beautiful,” Briony says as she grabs a handful of the ropes. The pearls feel warm in her palms, as smooth as satin. The pearls roll in her hand, and they glow pink and purple and cream and gray, lovely beyond words.

“We would go to war over a pearl,” Thorin says, and he crouches before her, reaching out to grasp her shoulders. “No one,” he says, “can know.”

“I swear,” Briony says, and she can feel the sting of tears in her eyes. Thorin’s fingers are tight on her shoulders, digging bruises into her skin.

“You can never come back,” Thorin says, “You can never see anyone of us again,” and when Briony nods, he kisses her.

x

She leaves the mountain with a chest of gold and a chest of silver. She has little else--a change of clothes, maps and sketches from Ori, what odds and ends she had picked up during the weeks in Erebor. In the bottom of her littlest bag, there are ropes of pearls nestled together, warm and gray and beautiful, tucked away beneath the short cloak Thorin had given her. Beautiful things--she has so many beautiful things, but nothing practical; she feels like a porcelain figure, waiting to be smashed on the ground.

“It has been an adventure,” Gandalf says as he rides beside her. He is looking back at Erebor, and when the wind catches his beard, pulling it askew, Briony thinks that he looks very much the picture of a wandering wizard.

“It has,” Briony says, “but I believe I am ready to be a Baggins once more.”

Gandalf smiles at her then, and he says, “We shall return more slowly than we came, but we should arrive soon enough.”

Briony doesn’t look back at the mountain--she doesn’t want to look back at the mountain, or to remember it, or to even think of it. She smiles at Gandalf instead, and at the wind that is pulling her west, and she says, “I believe that will be for the best.”


End file.
